goodbye, hello.
I’ve spent more time than I can remember living out of a suitcase, and running from place to place chasing the next new thing. For the longest time, I’ve never truly embraced the process of goodbyes or let myself feel out the experience of wholeheartedly letting the entirety of my spaces go. (There was always one thing that I wanted to keep and claim and carry). It wasn’t until recently, that I was reminded of how wonderful it is, to have things that exist to say goodbye to; that in holding space for gratitude in the shape of lessons built through resilience and courage, I’ve learnt to find the very parts of me that have side-stepped the places that were never meant to last forever. To look into the places that make me the sum of who I am today, for better or for worse, with deep eternal fondness.
It took a pandemic for me to fully realize how much I have never truly allowed myself to live a life that was completely my own. That I have always deferred my spaces to the spaces of the world around me, and never truly found the courage to step into the light of things that were mine to create and hold. Perhaps the biggest hello that I have learned to welcome these last six months, has been the creative space that I’ve allowed myself to belong to. A space created solely for myself that I’ve never enabled myself to have. A home that breathes permanence, intimacy and security. A sanctuary of continuity and belonging that exists independent of me and the world, but also dependant to the ideals and values I hold most dear. It is crazy to think that what I have grown to have in the last twelve months, is something that I have never learned to have before. In turn, I no longer find myself becoming the same person I was at the very beginning of this bizarre pandemic adventure.
Within the silence, I feel the tender undoing of things unlearnt, relearnt, and unlearnt again. In whatever time I have left in isolation, I hope to find myself saying goodbye to the parts of me that no longer exist. The me that was before this all began. A me that found its voice, lost it, and struggled to use it. To trade everything that I have ever come to know, for the promise of better. May I find within myself, a courage to perfect the tone I have learnt to carve into the voice I carry, and wholeheartedly look back at the last eight years with a deep affection for all that has been undone. A firm demarkation away from the places that are no longer meant for me, that I have no right to belong to, whether I come to fully experience it or not.